Six

By Renee Choiniere May 2011

#1
Grateful Paula once said
"Quick hold hands"
Smart woman!
She never stood by the door
or leaned over to far.
Genius !
#2
I sat alone
with this piece of my past
and knew her
by name
when I left
#3
Remember this ?
I cry, climb and wonder of you...
until I feel your hand in mine.
There!

#4
Others might have thought it rude.
I never did.
That the Queen always seemed to be
waving to herself...
Worship is the I of the beholder
#5
There is an edge
to the universe
that was never visible
before
be wise
Stand back
#6
Holding
is
The most important thing
I've ever
done

To Angel Flores of SWEETWATER, Texas .

His father threw this 4-year-old boy from his
car, in the dessert along a West Texas
highway. The injured boy spent several hours
alone in the dark. A passing motorist picked
him up, he was marred by over 500 cactus
thorns. His father, when caught later, said
God told him to leave the boy.

Pequea piel del Nio ,

Small child hide
By Renee Choiniere May
2011
Fly this way
Let me catch you
Nio pequeo
Little boy
Se esconden en el miedo
Small one, hide in fear
Beneath the cactus
and a midnight sky
You are safer with the wolves

Unleashed,
Cast to the feral city streets
Arms . limbs , hearts
Hands , lips, tears
Confuse you with their touch
Piel
Hide

The desert sand burries you

Cubrir, mi alma los ojos azules
Cover, my blue eyed soul
The thorns pain stiffens you
Lifes visions
Haunt you
Ha mentido

Here in sleep
A new mother sings for you
Only for you
La nacin de pecadores nos
lleva a perdonar
A nation of sinners begs your
forgivness
They lost you in their
cinematic ignorance
Where you are not real

He has lied

They see you now

Que no era
un padre
That was not a parent,a father
He was not given , he stole
No father knows he

Desde arriba promies vienen

Down from above come new
promises
Desde arriba vienen las nuevas
verdades
Down from above come new
truths

You are free

Minti
He lied
Del Nio He lied

Fusion
By Renee Choiniere May 2011
Always connected
even to the things
that have gone
from my sight
You will go from my sight
one day
You will lay and roll the hills
away from me
You will never
disconnect
from within
we are tied , woven
fused
even to the things
we cannot see
we are joined
we feel
with each others
fingers
the pulse
we share

Two Haiku
Us and Them Haiku
Renee Choiniere @ 10/17/2011
Asphalt grey pigeons coo
Living cold tenement lives
Farm hens roost inside

White night Haiku

Renee Choiniere @ 10/17/2011
Taxi urban heated sleigh
Carry me through treeless streets
Delivering night

Still by Renee Choiniere May

2011
Still
I remember pear trees
Hard, cold, relentlessly grey
And church bells
that rang
At weddings and funerals
As if they couldnt tell the
difference
And old men
who owned the benches in the
square
With cigar smoke and politics
I am still from there
I remember when the Y
burned down
The poor simple minded boy
of 45
Died
Because he hid under the bed
The alarms scared him
I still cry there
I remember Johnny Cash played
at the state fair
I slid in from behind the bleachers
And accidentally
Almost knocked his wife over

She said
well hello there
And shook my hand
I took a picture
in my mind
I still go there
I remember
A blond boy with huge muscles
kissed me
My mother cried
because of his
last name
I saw him every day for 2 weeks
He was my Romeo
I forget his first name
I still owe her
I remember
Her telling me
what she remembered
About her front porch
About my conductor grandfather
Using his railroad passes to take her to
museums
And once to the opera
It made her cry
Because of that
I still know her

Hear me child . . .
By Renee Choiniere 11/28/11 (7 syllable Anacreontic)

Pair my child, my need, my growth

Mirror back just what you know
Kick the path with honest moods
Lift the dirt with intuit boots
Let the earth know what you feel
Force your truth with righteous heal
Leave the weakness for the lost
Pay the price and know the cost
Dance with me along the road
Sing through life yet bare its load
Wrap your thoughts around the souls
Of fallen leaves, scattered stones
The rode is long, wide and deep
Clouds they cover while we sleep
Tarry not before the storm
Dance and spin and move along
Migrant stares...Migrant eyes
By Renee Choiniere 3/1/12
Hold tight to my boots while Im gone
I follow the old man to the fields
Strangers will lay the seed in rows
a minha voz ser a sua
my voice will be yours
espere por mim
Wait for me
Sing to the asphalt en portugus
my mothers song swells on your lips
strangers will lay the seed in rows
a minha voz ser a sua
my voice will be yours
cantar para mim
Sing to me
Hold close my small tender child
grown from my eyes
Strangers will lay the seed in rows
a minha voz ser a sua
My voice will be yours
chorar oraes
Pray for me

THE CANADIAN
By Renee Choiniere 8/12/11
I remember horses
Huge blond draft horses
panting and sweating in the snow
sweet smelling as the sugar in the barn
pulling, yanking, sliding
hoisting the filling vats along the trail
that separated the trees
into maple rows

It was one of the few places

The rare occasions
that my father was comfortable
in his skin
He belonged there
Among the Men
The ancestral old men
Thin gray deep eyed men
Anciently able bodied
Giving commands in French
pulling the ears of the young ones....

My father
now spoke only the kings English
Brought up in his chest
from the under world
The new world
that had kidnapped generations of farm
boys
He didn't seem to care
He was at home in his kin

The old ones bellowed

as if that was all it took
to interpret the language
as if volume
would increase understanding
The young cousins struggled
with gestures
to give the gift of their broken English
in jokes
My father laughed ,
my brothers shrugged
the music came up from the sugar shack

I remember how well the women cooked

How much the whiskey poured
How fast the fiddler spun
The vats now filled
were set above the blaze
sap tested in the snow
turned hard as taffy
the refiners fire
fed
To burn off the watery nothingness
To thicken, to bring out the thick syrup
To bring out the nature of the man
To bring him back
To the glorious
Sweet substance
that was
the Canadian

Unnamed Renee l. Choiniere 4/15/2015

It is Wednesday April fifteenth

and

seven forty-seven in the morning

easy , easy

I am alone

you call to the mover that

brings this part of her home

and I do not recognize my hands

not as the ones I have carried
all these years

I have cleaned a place to store

her

not as my own

store her
next to mine

stale accents of burnt wood

you have so much to cry about

perfume everything i wear

you dont and that is fine

unwashed curtains discolor my vision

you can lay your jacket over

mine

of the morning sun

on the winters piled turf
wrapped around layers of rocky soil
wrenched from the earth
by the blind man that plows our drive
and your mothers face was put to rest this
winter

your canvas and corduroy I

recognize
and can even name
but my own hands
are aged
are aging
are cold

I still see it
in a cloud over the barn

take them from me

that comes to watch us

they are

every,

from me

every stumble now

mother them for me

and pick yourself up

hold them under your arms

mother is watching

in the crevice

and her pride lives beyond the stretch of her

body over time

on either side of your heart

and thank God you can still love her for it

name them mine

and you have born the genetic structure of

those feelings

bring them back to me

know them

as they were
when I last knew them

Some Favorite poems and influences

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You - by Pablo Neruda
Alone With Everybody - by Charles Bukowski
Are You Drinking? - by Charles Bukowski
Be Kind - by Charles Bukowski
He Sees Through Stone By Etheridge Knight
Gacela of the Dead Child by Federico Garca Lorca
Still I Rise - by Maya Angelou
Old Folks Laugh - by Maya Angelou
Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine